Friday Tour | Sarah Deters

This week we will explore the relationships between movement, migration and musical instruments with organologist Sarah Deters. Using musical instruments as a lens, this tour of Angelica Mesiti’s In the Round will examine how the movement of people around the globe influences musical shapes and forms. Beginning with a military serpent, it will look at the importance of design for enabling the mobility of music and people. The effects of migration on cultural identity will then be discussed in relation to a British-made banjo, Chinese yueqin, Egyption riq and English tambourine appearing in the show. The tour will conclude with a discussion of Mesiti’s Swarming Song, a trigger for a conversation about how the European appetite for rational knowledge constructed what some call ‘world music’.